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Steven Soderbergh turns everything we know about a haunted house movie upside down in thought-provoking horror-drama Presence, as well as what we've come to expect from his work, too. Over the last 10 years or so, I've really liked Side Effects and Kimi and I adored Unsane, which was shot entirely on an iPhone 7 Plus and featured a barnstorming performance by The Crown's Claire Foy, but Presence is a much quieter, subtle offering than those high-energy flicks – and it took me a few days of sitting with it before I fully worked out its magic. I'm glad I did eventually…
Its premise, admittedly, is instantly amusing on paper: a haunted house movie told from the perspective of a ghost. Think Paranormal Activity meets In A Violent Nature. But the result is more melancholic and affecting than I could've imagined, as the silent voyeur – so clearly a comment on how Soderbergh sees himself as a filmmaker – opts not to spook the latest residents of their home. Instead, the specter merely observes them and well, it's safe to say they're not fun to be around.
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Chloe (Calliana Liang) is seriously struggling following the sudden death of her best friend Naomi, while her mother Rebekah (Lucy Liu) is too busy hyping up Chloe's aspiring athlete brother Tyler (Eddy Maday) to comfort her daughter – despite her sweet husband Chris's best efforts to get her to care. It doesn't take long for sensitive Chloe to pick up on the lurking phantom and quickly convinces herself it's Naomi's spirit wandering the halls of their new place, after it tidies up her bedroom and looks to defend her from her sibling's bullying.
Visions and voyeurs
Presence isn't really concerned with revealing so either way; the back half of the 85-minute movie centers on the family's surprisingly chill discussions on how to handle their unexpected roommate and Chloe's developing relationship with boy-next-door Ryan (West Mulholland), though it does have a super dark twist up its sleeve that we won't spoil here. By the time it rolls around, though, the idea of watching something awful play out and not being able to do anything is kind of more terrifying than the terrible acts themselves – and that's testament to the way Soderbergh builds up its unseen protagonist's sense of dread.
"I'm used to being close to the actors as the camera operator, but this was a real dance that I was doing with the cast," he previously told SFX magazine. "It was fun, because I really got to share some of their performance anxiety as we were doing the scene… On occasion, a take would get ruined because I'd bumped into them, or got trapped in the wrong place because I timed my movement incorrectly."
As cinematographer as well as director, Soderbergh positions himself directly as the ghost, which adds an interesting layer to the film and its subtle themes. While he's dabbled with lighter outings such as Logan Lucky and the Ocean's trilogy, Soderbergh is no stranger to presenting awful things on screen, from life-shattering hedonism in Magic Mike to global devastation in chilling sci-fi Contagion. Might he see himself as someone who has no choice but to witness such things play out? As some sort of dutied documentarian, albeit for the fictional in his case? Presence certainly makes that case.
Ghost with the most
It should go without saying that the film looks gorgeous, too, with Soderbergh forced to use unusual framing techniques to capture the apparition's POV; Chloe sleeping with Ryan through the gaps in her closet doors, a close-up bird's eye-view shot of a dozing Ryan, a peek through a window of Chris taking an emotionally charged phone call on the back porch. As is quite frequent in his filmography, he often utilizes natural light as well, which gives the movie an eerily domesticated aesthetic you don't see a lot within this genre.
Soderbergh wanting to ground the supernatural goings makes sense, given that he was influenced by reality TV series Celebrity Ghost Stories. "What distinguished a lot of those stories was that they often didn't come with the trappings of a typical ghost experience as we've seen in the movies – they were very matter-of-fact," he said in the aforementioned SFX feature. "I thought, 'Okay, that's interesting.'"
You see, perhaps what's most fascinating about Presence is how entirely unpredictable it is – an all too rare thing in Hollywood these days. Though I went into the movie wanting something in particular – a poltergeist gleefully making a bunch of humans' lives hell – and didn't get it, I can't be mad at a filmmaker who commits to his singular vision so faithfully, thus surprising us along the way. He's not afraid to challenge us and opens our minds; you know, the thing art is supposed to do – though it's easy to forget that nowadays.
I may not have vibed with Presence as much as I've done some of Soderbergh's previous works but I couldn't be more glad that he's still out there making unique contributions to cinema, in an industry that's dominated by franchises and IP. He's undoubtedly one of the most compelling filmmakers working right now.
Presence releases in UK cinemas on January 24. For more, check out our guide to the most exciting upcoming horror movies heading our way or our breakdown of all the 2025 movie release dates.
